Device for manufacturing a three-dimensional object

ABSTRACT

A device for the production of a three-dimensional object made of solidifiable material has at least one processing unit for processing of the solidifiable material into a fluid phase in order to discharge the material from a material reservoir via a discharge unit in the direction of a construction space in the form of discrete drops. The closing mechanism has an elastic deformable solid body joint.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The invention concerns a device for the production of a three-dimensional object made of solidifiable material.

BRIEF DISCUSSION OF RELATED ART

It is common in plastic parts manufacturing to produce large batch sizes and serial parts by injection molding or extrusion. The advantage of plastic injection molding is, in particular, based on the highly accurate production of complex part geometries, whereby the functionality of the injection molding process covers the requirements of cost-effective and economical production of plastic parts in an optimum way.

At the same time, the need for individual units and small batch sizes of plastic parts, as for example sample parts with the requirement of being supplied in a very short time, as well as properties similar to those of injection molding parts, is continuing to grow. There are manufacturing processes for the production of such parts which are widely known under the term “prototyping.” The production of such parts, in most cases, is based on the generation of the geometry from 3D data. These geometries are produced in a variety of forms by using the corresponding material, such as meltable layers of powder by adding heat, e.g., with lasers, by generative systems, such as printing processes, in various combinations of powder parts, or also in the so-called melt strand process.

A device is known from EP 1 886 793 A1, for which one of the plasticizing units common to the injection molding technique is coupled to a material reservoir that can be placed under pressure for the fluid phase of a material. For the production of an object on a slide in a construction space, this material is being discharged via a discharge orifice in the shape of drops, whereby, based on the adhesive forces of the material, high pressure and most of the time also high temperatures must be applied. In the process, the drops should have a size of 0.01 through 0.5 mm³. The shutter speed of the discharge aperture should preferably lie in the range of a few milliseconds and the diameter of the discharge orifice in the range of a few tenths of a millimeter.

From WO 95/05943, a principle similar to ink jet printing is known, in the process of which individual drops made of one material are deposited. The depositing of the drops occurs with the aid of well-known piezo converters, whereby material is supplied from a storage tank in a siphon-like manner. The material in contact with the print head is thus not under pressure.

The processes according to U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,850,334 B1 and 6,658,314 B1, in which photopolymer materials are printed according to the principle of ink jet printing and subsequently are exposed, work according to a similar principle. This field includes many applications concerned with the design of the appertaining print heads and the elimination of problems arising in the process (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,259,962 B1, WO 00/52624 A1, WO 00/76772 A1, WO 01/26023 A1, WO 01/53105 A2, WO 2004/044816 A1, WO 2004/050323 A1, WO 2004/096514 A2, WO 2004/096527 A2, WO 2005/053928 A2, EP 1 637 307 A2 or DE 199 31 112 A1).

DE 100 13 451 A1 and DE 100 13 450 B4, or even DE 196 26 428 A1 and DE 200 05 997 U1, are in particular concerned with the principle of how to best generate monodisperse drops with the best uniform particle size possible by using piezoelectric vibration generators. This however has nothing in common with the generation of drops in plastics engineering.

For a solution in which highly viscous fluid materials, such as melted plastics, in which small quantities are supposed to be processed from a material reservoir in small discrete individual portions down to a few micrograms, which reservoir is under high pressure and possibly at high temperature, sealing issues soon set in, in particular should the discharged portions possess such a high kinetic energy that they can overcome adhesion forces and lift off from the device and fly away as drops.

BRIEF SUMMARY

Starting with this state of the art, it is an object of the invention to create a device for the production of a three-dimensional object that also works reliably under the stated conditions.

This object is solved by a device for the production of a three-dimensional object made of solidifiable material, which is either present in a fluid phase in its initial state or can be fluidified, by a sequential discharge of drops comprising at least one construction space for constructing the object, at least one processing unit for processing of the solidifiable material into the fluid phase, at least one material reservoir for the fluid phase with at least one discharge unit for the sequential discharge of the solidifiable material in the form of discrete drops in direction of the construction space through a discharge orifice furnished with a synchronizable closing mechanism, and at least one pressure generating unit for generating pressure on the fluid phase in the material reservoir, wherein the closing mechanism has an elastic deformable solid body joint.

Under the stated conditions, the discharge device, as a dosing unit, exhibits the fewest possible number of seals to the outside world. For this reason, the sealing material features an elastic deformable solid body joint. As a result, the sealing material, preferably shaped as a nozzle needle, can, on the one hand, be manipulated, and on the other, the actuator is not exposed to the more difficult conditions of the material reservoir. Thus, other than at the filling opening of the material reservoir and at the discharge aperture, no further seals are necessary. Since the solid body joint also exhibits quasi integrated restoring forces with respect to the actuators having an influence from the exterior, the connection of the actuator to the material reservoir can occur with a minimal contact surface and unilaterally with respect to the effect of the force.

Further advantages arise from the subclaims and the description that follows.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

In the following, the invention is described in more detail based on the embodiment of the invention represented in the figures. The following is shown:

FIG. 1 a partially sectioned side view of the device,

FIG. 2 an enlarged section of FIG. 1 in the area of the discharge unit,

FIG. 3 a cross section and a three-dimensional representational view of the closing mechanism,

FIG. 4 the discharge unit according to FIG. 2 in conjunction with the appertaining control.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The invention will now be explained in more detail using examples in reference to the enclosed drawings. However, the embodiments are only examples which are not supposed to restrict the inventive concept to a certain configuration. Before the invention is described in detail, it must be pointed out that it is not restricted to the respective components of the device or the respective process steps since these components and processes can vary. The terms used here are merely intended for describing particular embodiments and are not used in a restrictive manner. If, in addition to the description or the claims, an individual or undefined item is used, then this also refers to the plural of these elements, as long as the overall context does not make something else unambiguously clear.

The figures show a device for the production of a three-dimensional object 16 of solidifiable material, which is present either in its initial state or a fluid phase or can be fluidified, by the sequential discharge of drops. This, for example, can occur as a result of discrete individual drops 15 being discharged sequentially from a discharge unit 13, until layer by layer object 16 results on the slide 14 in construction space 17. The solidifiable material is a plasticized material, such as for example silicone, or a plasticizable material such as plastic or even materials in powder form, whereby this essentially depends on the solidifiable material either being present in its initial state in a fluid phase or that it can be fluidified. The material can also be a material that can be reversibly melted and thus recycled. Any number of other materials can be used, provided that these materials are plasticizable by the device and, first and foremost, are dischargeable by the at least one discharge unit 13.

The solidifiable material in the fluid phase features a so-called laminar source flow. The adhesion of the melt at a wall of a discharge channel, amongst other things, enters into the laminar flow. This becomes most clear when looking at the state of knowledge of injection molding technology. During the mold filling of a simple rectangular channel, the melt is injected via a so-called injection point and begins to spread from this point with closed flow fronts in a circular fashion, until it fills out the entire width of the cavity. Some time later, the area between the inflow and the flow front can be regarded as nearly fully formed. At the flow front itself, a particular flow situation prevails, the source flow, since the stream lines in this area manifest themselves like a source, if they are viewed in reference to a co-moving coordinate system.

Between two of the nearby rapidly solidified bulk layers close to the cavity surfaces the melt flows, whereby it proceeds toward the flow front at a higher velocity in the middle of the cavity. Shortly before the melt reaches the flow front, its velocity component is reduced in the direction of the flow, and it flows diagonally to the wall until it touches the wall.

The laminar source flow is, on the one hand, based on its laminar formation, an advantage for the generation of the drop 15 “targeted” at the construction space 17, on the other hand, in particular for the formation of small drops, this here precisely also presents the problems making the implementation with devices and materials known from the injection molding technique more difficult. Adhesion to the wall leads to the matter only being able to preferably form drops with the desired small volumes in the range equivalent to 1 mm³ and desired flight velocity with difficulty, on the other hand precisely the corresponding high viscosity of the material is of significance to the formation of the suitable drop shape of a discrete drop.

This also differentiates the materials used from the previously known waxes. Based on their viscosity, waxes can be discharged by normal thermal printing or ink jet processes, and thus by purely kinematic, unpressurized accelerations without a difference in pressure of the melted drop. The materials used here already set themselves apart by having a viscosity number that is greater by one or more orders of magnitude. Thus the dynamic viscosity number of the solidifiable material lies between 100 and 10,000 [Pa s], whereby the solidifiable material preferably is a plastic commonly used in injection molding or a resin. This requires processing from a material reservoir that can be pressurized, since pressures of more than 10 to 100 MPa (100 to 1000 bar) are readily required, in particular when small discharge orifices are used to achieve small drop volumes.

The desired volume of the drop 15 preferably lies in the range from 0.01 to 0.5 mm³, preferably in the range of 0.05 to 0.3 mm³ and in particular preferably in the region of about 0.1 mm³. The diameter of the discharge opening 20, in particular is smaller or equal to 1 mm, preferably about 0.1 mm. In the case of a definitely standard injection velocity of 100 [cm/s], which, through a so-called pinpoint gate with a diameter of 0.1 [mm], delivers the mass, a value of 10,000 [cm/s]results for the volume flow divided by area. This, for the fluid phase, leads to a laminar source flow with flow velocities of up to 10,000 m/s.

The device, with its discharge unit, has the task of discharging highly viscous fluid material such as molten plastics, in small quantities down to a few micrograms, from a material reservoir 12, which is under high pressure and possibly at a high temperature. The smallest quantities/drops 15 of the material will be released in discrete individual portions, whereby their size can be influenced by the device. The discharged portions have such a high kinetic energy that they can overcome adhesive forces and lift off from the device and fly away as drops 15, in order to form the object 16 on the slide 14 in the construction space 17.

Since this is a matter of fluid but highly viscous materials, with a high adhesive force and small weight, the kinetic energy is transferred via a pressure difference between material reservoir 12 and the airspace formed in the construction space 17 for the drops 15. The portioning occurs via a synchronized aperture, which has been furnished with a jet needle or a nozzle needle 21 as the closing mechanism. As a result of the required dimensions of the portions, as well as the viscosity properties, usually pressures in the range of 100 MPa (1000 bar) and more, closing apertures smaller than 0.1 mm and furthermore shutter speeds of less than 0.001 s are required. Since the materials are most often plastics, the temperatures in the material reservoir are up to 450° C.

Under these conditions, the device must be implemented as a dosing unit with the least number of seals/contacts to the outside world as possible. In accordance with FIGS. 2 and 3, for this purpose the closing mechanism is furnished with an elastic deformable solid body joint 24. The cross section in FIG. 3 in particular shows that this is a fixed connection, for example in the sense of a material bridge, which on the other hand however is in the position of being controlled via actuator 26 with the corresponding elastic resilience. Jet needle 21 is used as the closure mechanism comprising bearing zones 21 a. Lateral to the centered jet needle 21, the material is thinned out for the formation of solid body joint 24. On the back, the actuator can act, directly or via an intermediate element, on contact surface 21 b. The shutter mechanism, via jet needle 21, closes discharge aperture 27.

At least one processing unit is provided for the processing of the solidifiable material into the fluid phase and from there the prepared material goes to at least one material reservoir 12 with at least one discharge unit 13. From there the material is discharged in the direction of the construction space 17 in the form of discrete drops 15 via a discharge orifice 20 furnished with a synchronizable closure. In order to ensure the required boundary conditions, at least one pressure generating unit is provided for the generation of pressure on the fluid phase in the material reservoir 12. The material reservoir 12, as in the embodiment, can be a component of the processing unit 11, which is formed by a plasticizing unit. The pressure generating unit is then, for example, the feed screw 28 depicted in FIG. 1 or a similar means of conveyance.

The jet needle is directly coupled to the resilient solid body joint 24, which seals the material reservoir 12 for the fluid phase of the material to the exterior to (operating) actuator 26. Thus other than the filling opening of the material reservoir 12 and discharge aperture 27, no further seals are necessary. Since solid body joint 24, as a result of a suitable geometric configuration, features quasi integrated restoring forces with respect to the actuator 26 acting on contact surface 21 b on the exterior, the connection of the actuator to the material reservoir under high pressure and at high temperatures, can occur with a minimum contact area and unilaterally with respect to the force action.

Solid body joint 24 serves simultaneously as the seal for the material reservoir 12 in the direction of actuator 26, via which jet needle 21 is operated unilaterally in accordance with FIG. 2. The actuator has preferably been arranged in isolation from and spaced away from material reservoir 12 via an insulating element as has been indicated in FIG. 4.

The solid body joint 24 that is formed as a result, is possible in a variety of geometric configurations and can for example be developed with a bias toward having the discharge aperture 27 passively closed or passively open. It can also be produced from a number of pressure and temperature resistant materials, which not only include metal but also for example fiber-reinforced light weight construction materials. The surface subject to the pressure in material reservoir 12 or in discharge channel 12 b is larger on the side opposite to discharge orifice 20 than in the area of discharge orifice 20. As a result, jet needle 21 would open passively. This means that actuator 26 actively shuts the discharge orifice or that the discharge orifice opens when no power is applied to the actuator.

Actuator 26 can be developed as an eccentric rotor, a direct magnet or as a piezo element. In the pre-tension, actuator 26 can preferably be adjusted manually or by controls. Likewise, in accordance with FIG. 4, a sensor 19 can be provided, the signals of which readjust the settings of actuator 26 according to the operating conditions in the material reservoir and thus the operating point, which based on the high pressure and the high temperature thermal expansion is required for compensation. According to FIG. 4, for example, the forces are recorded at the control element and readjusted to the set force values via control 18 and regulator 22. As a result, it is possible to readjust the pre-tension of the solid body joint with an automatic actuator adjustment according to the operating conditions in the material reservoir through suitable pressure and temperature sensors in the material reservoir 12.

For this purpose, actuator 26 is preferably designed as a force measuring element in order to measure the pre-tension of solid body joint 24 at the point of operation and to control adjustments. It is an advantage if the actuator is a piezo element. With such a sensor 19 and control 18, it is also possible to drive path/resistance curves along the solid body joint by means of the actuator in order to influence the shape of the discharged material, such as for example drop shape, in a targeted and deliberate manner.

It goes without saying that this description can be subjected to the various modifications, changes and adaptations found in the realm of similar counterparts to the attached claims. 

1. Device for the production of a three-dimensional object made of solidifiable material, which is either present in a fluid phase in its initial state or can be fluidified, by a sequential discharge of drops comprising at least one construction space for constructing the object, at least one processing unit for processing of the solidifiable material into the fluid phase, at least one material reservoir for the fluid phase with at least one discharge unit for the sequential discharge of the solidifiable material in the form of discrete drops in direction of the construction space through a discharge orifice furnished with a synchronizable closing mechanism, at least one pressure generating unit for generating pressure on the fluid phase in the material reservoir, wherein the closing mechanism has an elastic deformable solid body joint.
 2. Device according to claim 1, wherein the solid body joint is simultaneously constructed as a seal for the material reservoir.
 3. Device according to claim 1, wherein the discharge orifice is closable via a jet needle of the closing mechanism, which is connected to its bearing zone via the solid body joint.
 4. Device according to claim 3, wherein the jet needle is adapted to be operated unilaterally via an actuator.
 5. Device according to claim 4, wherein the actuator is arranged in isolation from and spaced away from the material reservoir.
 6. Device according to claim 4, wherein the actuator is adjustable manually or by controls in respect of its pre-tension.
 7. Device according to claim 4, wherein a sensor is provided, the signals of which readjust the settings of the actuator according to operating conditions in the material reservoir.
 8. Device according to claim 4, wherein the actuator is designed as a force measuring element for measuring the pre-tension of the solid body joint at its point of operation and for making adjustments.
 9. Device according to claim 4, wherein the actuator is a piezo element.
 10. Device according to claim 1, wherein a regulating and control unit is provided for detecting signals of at least one of the elements including a sensor and a force measuring element, and wherein by means of the detected signals control values for an actuator for operation of the closing mechanism can be determined or specified.
 11. Device according to claim 1, wherein a surface subjected to the pressure in the material reservoir is larger on the side opposite to the discharge orifice than in an area of the discharge orifice.
 12. Device according to claim 1, wherein the processing unit simultaneously forms the material reservoir.
 13. Device according to claim 1, wherein the processing unit is a plasticizing unit known in injection molding techniques for the processing of the solidifiable material as a plasticized or plasticizable material, which in its fluid phase exhibits a so-called source flow, and wherein the plasticizing unit is coupled to the material reservoir, which can be pressurized for introduction of the fluid phase into the material reservoir. 